JULIANA VENTER

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What would happen if we decolonize music? Composer Neo Muyanga points out in his editorial when and how do we differentiate our music? How do we differentiate ourselves from western rules? In my opinion one could also then ask how does western civilization stand as it does today without centuries of influences from others. Neo Muyanga talks about south Sotho words; for singing ´ho bina´ – meaning making a sound with your mouth. Why not use the symbol of a mouth and go into detail of how you want to use it, make drawings.

In
Setswana,´ho bina´means to dance, to
move your body. `ho opela` in Setswana means to sing, ´ho bina´in Sesotho. Also, ´ho
opela´ in Sesotho means clap hands. This is so beautiful and evocative that
I think South African composers should invent their own notation, based on
exactly these expressions.

But
the idea of decolonizing music and not using western notation especially when
you are for example learning classical music or Opera, sounds like an
impractical plan. In my opinion notation is just a series of work systems.
Notation as modern composers such as John Cage and Iannis Xenakis or
Stockhausen and many others have shown us can be anything. A system is helpful and it also creates the
possibility of storing something longer than just the lifetime of a cd or an
app, or a cloud, otherwise where do we store our work, our memories and ideas
and how do we share them ?

When
I am trying to write a score for the experimental sounds I make with my mouth,
I draw zigzags and lines and dots and signs no one else will understand. And
very few musicians can read a John Cage score. I think it is a matter of just
doing your own thing and owning it.

We
have all borrowed from each other, even jazz music from the USA has taken from
Ravel and the impressionists certain chord structures. It is not only as I often used to argue that
white people stole from jazz, they all stole from one another. And big rock
bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling stones have taken from and been
influenced by the blues from the USA. Howlin’ Wolf I am certain inspired
Captain Beefheart. Big Mama Thornton certainly inspired many female blues
singers such as Janis Joplin.

Indian
music and ragas and Arabic music mostly comes from an oral tradition and a
tradition being handed down from father to son or being a student of a master
meant sitting with the master and listening and playing for hours until the
music is in your blood. For me this is some of the most complex and beautiful
music I have ever heard.

The
Griot tradition in Mauritania which is one I have studied and performed myself
comes from storytelling. And they are very closed about this tradition, not
just anybody is allowed to sing and perform this music. One of my all time
favorite singers the great Dimi Mint Abba was a grand singer of the griot
tradition. Yet I dare to study it for myself and get inspired.

The violation in my opinion does not happen in influence or sharing or learning form one another, the negative thing that happens is when we steal. That in itself is a broad term, but it is a negative outcome, when we suffocate one group’s culture and describe it as primitive because it does not fall into western rules and traditions. Without mutual recognition and respect we are lost. Sounds almost naïve, these words recognition and respect. But they are not as simple as they sound it seems.

An example of this came to me when I was reading about Ghenghis Khan the Great Emperor of the Mongol Empire (1162- August 18, 1227). I always believed that Guttenberg found the first printing press but it was under Ghenghis Kahn in China that the first printing press was invented. It was through the silk roads and trade that civilization came to Europe. Under Ghenghis Khan’s empire all religions were allowed, and in his government sat Persians and Arabs and Turks and Chinese and many more. His only rule was that one religion and culture not oppress or rule the other.

When the Mongolians came in touch with the Europeans, it was a rather uncivilized society they stumbled upon, controlled by the church. Hygiene was almost non- existent. We have been told a distorted version of History, yet still I would not diminish everything European. How does one ignore the greatness of Bach? Bach who was inspired by Franz von Biber an experimental violin virtuoso (1600-1700).

I
quote Norwegian Saxophonist Rolf-Erik Nystrøm from his latest release The Oriental Winds of the Baroque. “It
is said Biber did something people later stopped doing in classical music, but
it is quite common in folk music in Norway, West Africa and central Asia,
namely to retune string instruments (scordatura) to create different moods.
Biber picked this up from folk music and travelers he met in Austria. These
people mostly came from the east, through Hungary, who in turn had contact with
people from the Ottoman Empire. There is a relationship between art, music and
folk music in the popular suite form of time. Each of these dances, for example
bouree, sarabande, gavotte, gigue can be traced back to folk music from other
parts of the world. Ciacconna and sarabande are said to have originated in the
Spanish colonies in Latin America in the 1500s and came back to Europe as sexy
dances, something that caused them to be forbidden by the church. This of
course made the dances even more popular and the nobility included them in
their festivities. We can therefore say that the perhaps most “European” of all
composers J.S. Bach, wrote Latin American-inspired music.

The
possibility of an even earlier inspiration for the ciacconna, the Moors. “The Moors of al – Andalus, Ziryab and Baroque music. Etymologically the
word orient comes from east/rising´” In the beginning it was used for the
Italian Peninsulas east Coast. Around 600 AD this would shift to the City of
Rome. Any area below the City of Rome was considered the Orient, as well as the
ethnicities inhabiting the land, such as Dalmatian Italians (modern
Neopolitans, along with Sicilians, Tunisians, Moroccans, Greeks, etc) as well
as everything east of southern Italy and North Africa” ( Edward Said:
Orientalism).

The
Moorish kingdom, al- Andalus, was established on the Iberian peninsula in the
700s and was only wound up in 1492 under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of
Aragon and Castile. What the Moors and the Arabs brought with them to Spain and
Europe from north and west Africa, even from Baghdad, is surprising to most
people.

Europe
was seen by the Muslims as a barbaric place and being sent there in the 800s
was used as punishment. Under al Andalus, laws were introduced against crime,
for religious freedom – of course, without permission to mock the religion of
others. Here most of the scientific and philosophical writings from old Hellas
and other earlier civilisations were translated into Arabic for the first time.
If one wanted to read Greek classic writing like Aristotle, in the 9th century
in Europe, it would have been in Arabic.

In
1085, when king Alfonso VI entered the library in the Muslim town of Toledo, he
found Muslims, Jews and Christians together tending the books, all fluent in
Arab and Spanish. The Christians then translated those great works into Latin,
spreading it throughout Europe. Universities, never seen in Europe before, were
founded, with possibilities for even slaves and woman to study. The Arts,
especially music, poetry and architecture, were cultivated, and knowledge of
medicine and medical science was introduced.

A
powerful testimony to the significance of travel for cultural development in
Europe is the story of the Persian musician, historian, astronomer, poet, geographer
and botanist Ziryab (789-857). He was sent to the Iberian peninsula as
punishement after he had once outshone his music master in Baghdad and made the
teacher so jealous that he gave him the choice of being executed – or banished
to Europe. In al-Andalus Ziryab was allowed great freedom by the sultan, who
was very enthusiastic about the songs, knowledge and words of wisdom Ziryab
brought with him from far away. Here he gained more attention than others,
since he was so different! He established music schools, introduced new ways of
dressing, hair styles, food, introducing drinking form glass and not metal. He
encouraged the use of soap, deodorant and toothpaste. Ziryab changed the
culture in the region and set his mark on European music for the future.

With travel follows new discoveries and understanding, and we who call ourselves artists, and thereby story – tellers, must tell these stories when society shirks the duty. Music should really speak for itself, but as a reaction to the times we live in, where knowledge and history are given little significance in political decisions and a large section of media.

With History and time things change and new generations learn new things and often they don’t learn in depth what came before, the new disregard the old as stale and insignificant. Sometimes it is, but where we have arrived today in 2020, I almost have the feeling that in-depth knowledge is not what we will be left with. We will have lost vital knowledge in the near future if we are not careful.

As
a singer and composer who grew up in an Afrikaans family under Apartheid South Africa,
it is clear to me how much more we could have given each other had we not been
so brutally separated. How history taught me very little about all the millions
of other people living in the same country as me and how separation can make
you a spiritual refugee in your own
birth place.

Some of these composers and musicians are creating their own styles deeply rooted in the traditional music from South Africa and other parts of Africa and the world adding their own modern style to it and creating a new type of contemporary music. This I find very exiting.